Fire and Danger

Through a door next to a loading dock lies one of Salem’s hidden treasures.

By Staff reports

The Taunton Daily Gazette, Taunton, MA

By Staff reports

Posted Jul. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 11, 2013 at 11:22 AM

By Staff reports

Posted Jul. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jul 11, 2013 at 11:22 AM

Salem

» Social News

Through a door next to a loading dock lies one of Salem’s hidden treasures.

The first thing you notice when you step in the Glassworks Studio in the Enterprise Center at Salem State University is the sound - a constant industrial roar, the product of the impressive exhaust fans that suck the superheated air of the furnaces away. The heat is still there though, dry and omnipresent, sometimes strong enough to feel like a shove to the chest. It comes from the two furnaces built into the wall, which burn hotter than 2,000 degrees - hot enough to turn sand into honey.

At least, that’s what liquid glass looks like, as it’s drawn from the furnace in the hands of a master glass artisan like Dawson Kellogg. Glowing, pouring honey - the kind of honey that would explode the teeth in your mouth if you were to taste it. It dribbles and swirls on the metal tables Kellogg uses to construct his art piece, a 40-pound freeform sculpture that will eventually be lit from above and contain a precious, brightly colored vessel.

“There’s an addictive quality to what we do,” Kellogg said. “If you like to play thrill sports, drive cars fast, then you’ll like making glass because it satisfies a lot of the same elemental desires for danger and fire.”

If watching danger and fire safely from the sidelines is more your speed, however, you’re in luck. Kellogg and three of his colleagues at the pinnacle of the glass art profession will spend a month at the Glassworks Studio, creating one-of-a-kind artistic treasures that will eventually grace galleries and join SSU’s permanent art collection. And on Monday evenings each week, their studio will be open to the public.

“Working with the other artists has been so much fun. Sometimes, in the glass world, you can get to feeling like you’re a big fish in a small pond, because there’s not always many of us. So it’s great to swim with other fish,” Kellogg said. “Being here at SSU, we all know we have a one-month free pass to create the work of our dreams. We’re not going to waste it.”

The artists, who include Kellogg along with artisans Danny White, Tyler Kimball and Chris Watts, were brought together as part of a new residency funded by the Rosenberg Institute for Passionate and Emerging Artists, said Karen Gahagan, director of the Center for Creative and Performing Arts.

“The center is going to play a larger role in marketing the Glassworks Studio, making sure the public is aware of it, and this residency is a large part of that,” Gahagan said. “It is allowing emerging artists to really find their voice in what they want to do with glass.”

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Despite limited publicity for the initial gathering, attendance at Kellogg’s demonstration was standing-room only. Crowds watched with rapt attention as Kellogg and his colleagues swung the heavy, infinitely fragile, and inconceivably hot sculptures around in a dance that was dangerous and mesmerizing.

“Just tonight, awareness of the studio I think raised tenfold,” Gahagan said. “SSU might be the only state institution that has something like this. We want people to know about it, want people to engage with it.”

One such visitor was Jadyn Fox, of Bethesda, Md. Fox was in Salem visiting grandparents, and bought a small glass starfish after watching the demonstration.

“It was really cool to find out how dangerous the glass could be,” Fox said. “You can get really hurt, but at the end it’s amazing how they can shape the forms that they do.”

Gahagan said that she hopes that the residency might become a yearly Salem artistic tradition, bringing in more and more glass artists.

“We hope we’re guinea pigs, to get the program started and give feedback on how it can grow,” Kellogg said. “Once connections here start to be made, I think it’s definitely going to continue.”